I took a year off after high school on deferred admission. Decided I wasn't quite ready for school yet and my 1 year deferred admission turned into 9 years. During those 9 years I made about every mistake you can make. I was having fun, but I was also completely lost. I was always the youngest one anywhere I went, often by 10 or 20 years, and to be frank I was probably annoying as *(&! to the people I was working with.
Here's what I haven't seen anyone talking about on this thread. When you're 17-22, you need to be around other people your own age. Being the youngest person everywhere I went, being treated like a kid all the time, that had an impact on me that lasted for years. No one talks about it, but I suspect that's one big reason we push our young people into military service or college (or if you go into the trades, an apprenticeship program). It's because there are a few years where you are old enough to make it on your own and be out of your parents' house, but still figuring stuff out.
Yes, you CAN be successful in life without college or the military. But there is a major social aspect to those years in life that you will be missing out on. And I can tell you that going back to college just a few years after that window in time is not at all the same. You only get one chance at those years. Much of what you get out of college is tied to the social part of it. You're surrounded by other people roughly your own age. They're doing amazing things, and they're willing to invite you to do those things. There's a pool of people for you to date. You are in a safe place to experiment with life (change your major? no problem. Break up with a girlfriend? It happens. Get too drunk? It's tolerated, because you're learning. etc., etc.). That, more than anything, is what you miss out on by not spending time in a place with people your own age.
So as a guy who once sat in your shoes, here's what I wish I had done differently. I wish I had taken only 1 or 2 years off instead of 9, so that I would have gotten that social aspect which is such an important part of school. I wish I had gone to school in a really inexpensive place to live and gone to a really inexpensive school and taken out way fewer loans. I wish I had bought a house near campus and rented it to my buddies and lived rent free or even made a small profit while building equity and learning how to be a landlord/homeowner. I wish I had studied computer science, because it pays so much better than what I do now and would have launched me into an income category where I could get started in real estate years earlier.
But here's what I don't regret. I don't regret taking time off between school and college, I just didn't need quite that much time. I don't regret going to school, even though it left me in debt and I never really got to work in my field. Even being the old man at school, I still made lifelong friends and met my wife, and that alone is worth the student loan payment. And yes, I took on debt, but I went from making $16/hour with no benefits doing manual labor before college to $100k/year with amazing benefits sitting in an air conditioned office after college, and that put me in a position to get started in real estate. The boost in income and quality of life more than makes up for the loans. And I don't regret walking out of a Navy recruiter's office when I was 17, since I turned out to be way too independent and contrarian for the military.
So it's just my 2c, but don't rule out college entirely. Take a year or two off after high school if you want. But there's more to college than just career prep. There's a huge value to being encouraged to learn and experiment and surrounding yourself with other fun, interesting people your own age. Find a way to make college affordable by thinking creatively (foreign schools, cheap state schools, landlording during school, etc.). But you've got the entire rest of your life to make money. You only get to be in your late teens/early 20s once.
